Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons^™

Beyond The Polemics: Realistic Options To Help Divorcing Families Manage Domestic Violence, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

Children, adult survivors, and their batterers who remain engaged in violence, even after they live apart, are living legacies of the historical perniciousness of domestic violence, a legacy that must change. True, over the past thirty years the politicization of domestic violence has raised public awareness, spurred legislative reforms, and propelled court innovations. However, the children, survivors, and batterers who still live domestic violence after divorce know all too well that all of our political advancements, legal victories, court innovations, and social awareness have not stopped the violence they live within their day-to-day lives. For many of these families, an …

Should There Be A Rule Compelling Adr? Follow The Road Where A Thousand Flowers May Grow, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. 'Which road do I take?' she asked. 'Where do you want to go?' 'I don’t know,' Alice answered. 'Then,' said the cat, 'it doesn’t matter.'" So too, in 1994 NYS reached the proverbial fork in road as our state continued its foray into dispute resolution. Which road should New York State proceed down to promote the development of ADR in our state? Should New York State adopt a mandatory rule compelling ADR or should New York State embrace a more voluntary …

Two For The Price Of One Is A Costly Choice: The Ethical Issues For Lawyer-Mediators Who Consider Drafting Agreements, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Should a lawyer who serves as a mediator for two unrepresented parties also draft the resulting agreement if both mediating parties request the lawyer to do so? On June 30, 2010, the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Committee on Mediator Ethical Guidance (hereinafter “The Committee”) issued Ethics Opinion SODR-2010-1 “Mediator’s Duty of Care When Drafting Agreements.” This ethics opinion calls into question the blurry ethical contours between lawyering and mediation when mediating with pro se parties. In this column, I will review the Committee’s ethics opinion and then, applying the New York Rules of Professional Conduct, discuss the potential …

Dispute Resolution Lessons Gleaned From The Arrest Of Professor Gates And "The Beer Summit", Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

America's fantasy of a post-racial society was shattered on July 16,2009, when a white police officer arrested Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, a well-respected African-American academic, in his own home. Our historical racial fissure was widened. Once again, our thoughts were plagued with tortured images of our system of racialized law enforcement: the torture of Abner Louima, the beating of Rodney King, the killing of Amadou Diallo. Predictably, Americans became further polarized, as they simultaneously blamed and defended responses to racism.

In what was perceived by some as a dramatic and unanticipated turn of events, and perceived by others as …

Fiqh And Canons: Reflections On Islamic And Christian Jurisprudence, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

Although American scholarship has begun to address both Christian and Islamic jurisprudence in a serious way, virtually none of the literature attempts to compare the place of law in these two world religions. This Essay begins to compare Islamic and Christian conceptions of law and suggests some implications for contemporary debates about religious dispute settlement. Islam and Christianity are subtle and complex religions. Each has competing strands; each has evolved over millennia and expressed itself differently over time. Moreover, although systematic treatments of Islamic law are beginning to appear in English, much remains available only in languages, like Arabic, that …

Introduction: Adr Meets Bankruptcy, G. Ray Warner

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

On October 2, 2009, the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review, the Hugh L. Carey Center for Dispute Resolution, and the St. John's Institute for Bankruptcy Policy convened respected bankruptcy jurists and dispute resolution scholars to host "ADR Meets Bankruptcy: Cross-Purposes or Cross-Pollination." Bankruptcy is a dispute resolution process unlike other forms of court adjudication, both in the flexibility of the process and in the systemic goals. In many ways, bankruptcy is a form of alternative dispute resolution. Yet there has been little formal engagement between students and practitioners of bankruptcy and students and practitioners of the nominally separate …

Truth And Consequences: What Should A Mediator Ethically Disclose About Her Mediation Style? How Might A Mediator’S Style Compromise A Mediator’S Neutrality?, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Transparency is fast becoming the buzzword of mediation. Part of that transparency includes the ethical obligation of mediators to disclose in a meaningful and comprehensible way precisely how that mediator will conduct the mediation. Yes, mediation consumers have an ethical right to such information so that they may then make informed decisions about which mediator to select. Isn’t that what the long-held mediation tenets of consent and self-determination are all about? Legitimizing this ethical entitlement, the revised 2005 Model Standards for Mediators guides:

A mediator shall conduct a mediation based on the principle of self-determination. Self-determination is the act …

The Jelly Beaner Challenge: How Attorneys Serving As Neutrals Identify And Coordinate The Ethical Mandates Of The 2009 Rules Of Professional Conduct With The Ethical Mandates Of Dispute Resolution, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Many of us may remember as children trying to master the coordination game Jelly Beaner, a joust in which the player is challenged to pat his or her head up and down with one hand while simultaneously rubbing his or her belly in a circular pattern with the other hand. Competing movements, but with practice even those less coordinated can master how to synchronize their hands and play the game. So, too, those of us who are lawyers serving as neutrals are now engaging in a variant of the Jelly Beaner Challenge when it comes to discerning ethical behavior. …

We Can Work It Out: Entertaining A Dispute Resolution System Design For Bankruptcy Court, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

On October 2, 2009, dispute resolution scholars and bankruptcy court jurists courageously began the difficult conversation about the feasibility of an expanded dispute resolution system design for bankruptcy court. This commentary distills that conversation through a dispute resolution system design lens. Dispute resolution system design offers a framework for organizations to more effectively manage and resolve recurring conflicts. The design of a dispute resolution system requires clarifying ideas, elucidating values, prioritizing goals, considering options and incorporating that information into a more workable process to respond to conflict. All the while, the stakeholders and dispute resolution designers work together to clarify, …

International Commercial Arbitration And International Courts, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

The editors of this symposium have asked us to address an interesting question. Why hasn't international commercial arbitration’s (ICA's) success been repeated in the context of international courts? In the last few decades, states have created scores of permanent tribunals with jurisdiction to resolve disputes about international law. By and large, though, states have not been as receptive to the rulings of these tribunals. What accounts for this comparative lack of hospitality? Why do states treat ICA and international adjudication so differently?

In this essay, I offer an explanation. States treat ICA and international adjudication differently because they are categorically …

The Sutherland Report And Dispute Settlement, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

Ten years after the organization's founding, an air of disappointment surrounds the WTO. The great promise of a global trade regime, dedicated to the principle of comparative advantage, seems to have stalled. The Doha Development Round, launched in 2001 in an attempt to redeem the disastrous Seattle Ministerial Conference of 1999, has been stymied by familiar disputes between North and South, mostly with respect to agricultural issues, but with respect to nonagricultural market access and services as well. Frustrated by impasses at the WTO, members have increasingly bypassed the organization in favor of discrete "preferential trade agreements", or PTAs, that …

International Decision: United States--Continued Dumping And Subsidy Offset Act Of 2000, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

This brief article is a report of an international decision of the World Trade Organization Appellate Body on January 16, 2003, concerning the United States’ Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (WT/DS217 & 234/AB/R). Eleven WTO members—Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the European Communities, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, and Thailand—filed a challenge to the Byrd Amendment in the summer of 2001. A WTO dispute settlement panel, agreeing with the complaining parties, made two major findings. First, the panel concluded that the Byrd Amendment constitutes an impermissible specific action against dumping and subsidization under the Antidumping and SCM Agreements. …

Against Global Governance In The Wto, John O. Mcginnis, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

In "Global Governance and the WTO," Professor Andrew Guzman has done an impressive job of articulating a vision of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that many international lawyers share. In this vision, the WTO's mission should be expanded beyond its present task of facilitating tariff reductions and preventing covert protectionism. Rather, the WTO should take on substantive authority in a wide variety of non-trade areas, including the environment, labor, human rights, and public health. Unlike many people who share this vision, Guzman takes the time to describe how it might best be accomplished. He advocates specialized WTO departments and periodic …

Enforcement Of Wto Rulings: An Interest Group Analysis, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

The WTO's Dispute Settlement Understanding ("DSU") provides that disputes are to be resolved in adversarial proceedings before impartial panels of experts. These panels have authority to decide whether members' laws conform to WTO requirements; members may appeal rulings to a permanent Appellate Body within the organization, which has the final say on questions of law and legal interpretation. Under the DSU, if a member fails to comply with a final ruling in a dispute, the prevailing party may retaliate by suspending trade concessions that it owes the offending member. This retaliation can continue until the offending member implements the WTO's …

The World Trade Constitution, John O. Mcginnis, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

Conventional wisdom holds that the World Trade Organization (WTO) necessarily poses a threat to sovereignty and representative government within its member nations. Professors McGinnis and Movsesian refute this view. They argue that the WTO can be understood as a constitutive structure that, by reducing the power of protectionist interest groups, can simultaneously promote international trade and domestic democracy. Indeed, in promoting both free trade and accountable government, the WTO reflects many of the insights that inform our own Madisonian Constitution. Professors McGinnis and Movsesian reject recent proposals to grant the WTO regulatory authority, endorsing instead the WTO's limited adjudicative power …

A Negotiation Analysis Of Mandatory Arbitration Contracts, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In Rosenberg v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. the First Circuit addressed whether a pre-dispute mandatory arbitration contract covered employment claims under Title VII and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and was thus enforceable. The court held that while these types of arbitration contracts are theoretically enforceable, this particular contract was not. The First Circuit determined that the 1991 Civil Rights Act and the Older Worker's Benefit Protection Act did not preclude the enforcement of mandatory arbitration contracts, and that there was an insufficient showing of arbitral bias to prevent the contract's enforcement. The court, …

Sovereignty, Compliance, And The World Trade Organization: Lessons From The History Of Supreme Court Review, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

One of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO's) more remarkable and controversial innovations is its mechanism for resolving trade disputes among member states. Traditionally, states have resolved such disputes in "pragmatic" fashion, through negotiation and compromise informed by the relative power of the parties involved. But no longer: the WTO's Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (the DSU) provides that disputes between member states are to be resolved in adversary proceedings before impartial panels of experts." Under the DSU, panels have authority to decide whether members' laws violate international trade norms; panel decisions are essentially binding, though …

Not-So-Arbitrary Arbitration: Using Title Vii Disparate Impact Analysis To Invalidate Employment Contracts That Discriminate, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

On May 20, 1996, three women filed a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit against the Wall Street investment firm Smith Barney. Later joined by twenty additional women, the plaintiffs alleged that Smith Barney failed to hire and promote women, created a hostile work environment, and discriminated on the basis of pregnancy and marital status. The lawsuit quickly gained widespread publicity, most notably for its accusation that the former manager of the Garden City, New York, branch had established a fraternity-like "boom-boom room" in the office basement where female employees were either excluded or harassed if allowed to enter. On …

A Post-Conference Reflection On Separate Ethical Aspirations For Adr's Not-So-Separate Practitioners, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

At "The Lawyer's Duties and Responsibilities in Dispute Resolution" Symposium at South Texas College of Law, Oct. 25, 1996, a central topic of discussion was ADR's ethical separateness. There was a shared sense that ADR providers and practitioners confront a range of ethical issues that differ from those that confront non-ADR lawyers. On this view, because rules of professional responsibility are geared toward more adversarial forms of legal practice, they at best provide no answers and may provide wrong answers to ethical questions that arise in ADR. One solution would be to create new, separate, "role-specific" ethics rules for ADR …

Drafting Mediation Privileges: Lessons From The Civil Justice Reform Act, Michael A. Perino

Faculty Publications

Mediation confidentiality provisions or privileges are now prevalent throughout the United States. Forty-one states have enacted some form of mediation privilege. As part of the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act of 1990, Congress enacted legislation to protect confidentiality in mediations involving federal agencies. An additional source for such provisions is the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 (CJRA), which required each federal district court to implement a civil justice expense and delay reduction plan (Plan(s)) by the end of 1993. Those Plans seek to implement mechanisms designed to address causes of excessive expense and delay in the federal courts.

A number …